On the west side of the Châteauguay, Izard was reinforced but could not break through de Salaberry’s works. By 3:00 p.m. Hampton had concluded that the attack was a failure and ordered a withdrawal. Casualties on both sides were light, about fifty for the United States and half that number for the British.110 Hampton had lost heart even before the battle had begun when he saw an order from Armstrong for the construction of winter quarters on the border. This convinced him that the administration had no real interest in pressing the invasion. “This paper sank my hopes,” he said, “and raised serious doubts of receiving that efficatious support which had been anticipated.”111
The Battle of Crysler’s Farm
Wilkinson proved no more eager to carry out his part of the operation. He wanted the administration to order the attack (so that he could avoid blame if it failed), and he suggested that “in case of Misfortune[,] having no retreat, the army must surrender at discretion.”112 Afflicted with dysentery, Wilkinson took massive quantities of laudanum, a compound of opium and alcohol used to treat intestinal disorders. This rendered him unfit for command. Wilkinson conceded that the laudanum gave him “a giddy head,” and according to one officer, during the ensuing campaign “the general became very merry, and sung and repeated stories.”113
Wilkinson moved his army, about 7,300 strong, from Sackets Harbor to Grenadier Island in a flotilla of boats in mid-October, but high winds and rough seas damaged his boats and destroyed many of his supplies and munitions. Repairs and resupply delayed his descent into the St. Lawrence until early November.114 Moving by water and land, Wilkinson’s army reached Long Sault (now called the International Rapids) on November 10. Brigadier General Jacob Brown, who had helped clear the way, was now dispatched ahead to drive the enemy from the north shore. With assistance from Colonel Winfield Scott, Brown drove British militia from Hoople’s (or Uphold’s) Creek and then occupied Cornwall.115
Wilkinson’s advance down the river was followed by a mixed British force of 1,200 regulars, fencibles, and Mohawks under the command of thirty-year-old Lieutenant Colonel Joseph W. Morrison, a respected officer but without combat experience. Morrison’s men left their boats and established a good defensive position at Crysler’s Farm on the north shore. Too ill to conduct operations himself, Wilkinson sent forty-eight-year-old Brigadier General John P. Boyd and 3,000 men to dislodge the British. Boyd had an impressive service record, having fought as a mercenary in India and taken part in the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811, although he had never quite mastered his trade.
On November 11, Boyd launched an attack against Morrison’s force, but he failed to provide adequate guidance to his men, and he sent them into battle piecemeal and without enough ammunition. The British defeated the Americans in detail and then drove them from the field. In the Battle of Crysler’s Farm, about 400 Americans were killed, wounded, or missing, while the British losses were half this number. Among the American casualties was a respected officer, Leonard Covington, who had just turned forty-five and been promoted to brigadier general.116
Aftermath of Wilkinson’s Failure
By the time of this defeat, Wilkinson realized that Hampton had returned to Plattsburgh and had no intention of joining forces with him. Using this as an excuse to call off the campaign, he ordered his army into winter quarters at French Mills (now Fort Covington), New York. Here his troops suffered from the severe winter weather. “You can almost gather the Atmosphere in by handfulls as you do Water,” said one officer. “Several Sentinels, have frozen to death on post and Many are badly frostbitten.”117 The men also suffered from bad provisions and a scarcity of hospital stores and other supplies. “Even the sick had no covering except tents,” reported an army doctor. “Under these circumstances sickness and mortality were very great.”118 Most of the officers, Wilkinson included, had fled to safer quarters, and conditions at French Mills improved only after General Brown took charge and competent medical personnel arrived.119
It was difficult to put a good face on the campaign against Montreal in 1813. This double-barreled attack was the largest military operation of the war on either side, and yet it had ended in disgrace with both armies losing to much smaller forces without ever getting within sight of Montreal. Since the British had taken the American campaign seriously enough to garrison Montreal with some 6,000 men, it is unlikely that any assault would have succeeded anyway.120
Wilkinson roused himself for one more foray into enemy territory in March 1814. Leading some 4,000 men into Lower Canada, he aimed to menace Montreal and thus force the British to transfer troops from Upper Canada to protect the city.121 On March 30 he found himself at Lacolle Mill, which had been the site of an inconclusive battle during Major General Dearborn’s stillborn campaign in 1812. The mill was a stone fortification protected by thick walls and now garrisoned by 180 men. Wilkinson laboriously brought up three small fieldpieces to assault the mill, but his artillery made little impression on the stone walls. The British were subsequently reinforced and then retired to a blockhouse on the north side of Lacolle River. Since the British had several armed vessels on the river, Wilkinson gave up the attack and retreated to the United States. In the Second Battle of Lacolle Mill, the British lost about 60 men, the Americans more than 150. Wilkinson later claimed that his ill-conceived invasion had had a tonic effect on his army. Shortly thereafter, he was removed from command, thus bringing to an end his long and checkered career as a U.S. army officer.122
The Creek War in the Southwest
There was also fighting on the southern frontier in 1813, although here the enemy was a militant band of Creeks. The British had talked about cultivating and supplying southern Indians as early as 1812 to force the United States to divert resources from the Canadian frontier. But by the time they acted in 1814, it was too late. The Creeks had been defeated, and those who had survived either had come to terms with the United States or taken refuge in Spanish Florida.123
The Creeks occupied much of present-day Alabama and Georgia and were loosely allied with neighboring tribes in a large confederation. Benjamin Hawkins, who had been the Indian agent to the tribe since 1796, had long urged the Creeks to adopt white ways to survive the decline in game. Many Creeks, particularly the mixed-bloods, were receptive. Although still primarily hunters, Creeks practiced agriculture, raised livestock, and owned slaves. They also had an effective form of tribal government, accepted private property, valued the written word and education, and were open to new gender roles. In short, they embraced many values and conventions that in 1812 would have defined them as civilized.124
Niles’ Register claimed that the United States had treated the Creeks “with the utmost gentleness and generosity” and that the Indians had “no possible cause of complaint.”125 But some Creeks, like the Indians in the Northwest, had long been nursing grievances. Known as “Red Sticks” because they carried red war clubs, these Creeks were eager to resist further encroachments on their lands and the destruction of their traditional way of life. Tecumseh had visited the Creeks in 1811, hoping to persuade them to return to their traditional ways and to join his crusade against the white man. “Let the white race perish!” he told the Creeks. “Burn their dwellings—destroy their stock—slay their wives and children, that the very breed may perish.”126 Although the older chiefs withstood Tecumseh’s entreaties, the Red Sticks were more receptive. They were further emboldened by promises of aid from Spanish officials in Florida and by Anglo-Indian victories in the Old Northwest.127
The War in the Southwest and on the Gulf Coast
With visions of rolling back white settlements, Red Sticks began raiding the frontier. In May 1812, one band of Red Sticks murdered several white people living on the Duck River south of Nashville. In February 1813 another band that had visited Tecumseh and taken part in the Battle of Frenchtown killed settlers in Kentucky on their way home. These depredations led to demands for retaliation. To keep peace with the whites, the old Creek chiefs ordered the guilty Indians hu
nted down and killed. This precipitated a civil war in the tribe, and the old chiefs soon found that they had to flee to the American Indian agent for protection. With the Red Sticks in the ascendant and threatening to destroy those who opposed them, most Creek towns pledged their support, and Indian raids in the Southwest increased.128
In July 1813, a group of Red Sticks, who had sacked several Mississippi settlements, visited Pensacola to trade for European goods and to pick up powder and lead promised by Spanish officials. On July 27, as some of these Indians were returning with their pack train, they were attacked 80 miles north of Pensacola by 180 Mississippi militia and volunteers. In the three-hour desultory Battle of Burnt Corn, casualties on both sides were light, seventeen for the Americans and perhaps eight for the Indians. Although the Americans escaped with most of the pack train, the ease with which they were ultimately driven from the field by a much smaller force only emboldened the Indians. This was the opening battle in the Creek War. It transformed what had been a civil war in the Creek confederation into a larger war with the United States.129
Fort Mims Massacre
The Creeks retaliated on August 30 by attacking Fort Mims, a stockade 40 miles north of Mobile. The fort was occupied by 300 people, including 120 militia under the command of Major Daniel Beasley, a regular army officer. Beasley took his duties lightly and did not adequately prepare the fort for defense. Ignoring a warning from slaves who had spotted Indians earlier in the day, the Americans were caught by surprise and overrun when blown sand made it impossible to close the fort’s gate. The Indian assailants, led by William Weatherford, a Scottish-Cherokee leader also known as Red Eagle, paid dearly, losing at least 100 killed and many more wounded. But they killed close to 300 of the defenders, including many women and children. Weatherford tried to halt the slaughter but without success. “My warriors were like famished wolves,” he said, “and the first taste of blood made their appetites insatiable.”130 The only survivors were a few whites who escaped into the woods and some black slaves who were carried off by the victorious Indians.131
Early reports exaggerated the number of people killed at Fort Mims and “spread consternation through the Territory.”132 “Our settlement is overrun,” reported one westerner, “and our country, I fear, is on the eve of being depopulated.”133 The Fort Mims massacre stirred up people in the Southwest, much as the River Raisin massacre had galvanized people in the Northwest. There were widespread calls to punish, if not destroy, the Indians, and throughout the region militia were called up and volunteers recruited for guard duty and punitive expeditions.
American Retaliation
People in Georgia and the Mississippi Territory were quick to answer the call. Captain Sam Dale, known as “Big Sam” to the Indians, had been wounded at Burnt Corn but had recovered enough to resume operations in the Mississippi Territory. Determined to drive the small Indian war parties from the frontier, he led forty men up the Alabama River, reaching what is today Monroe County, Alabama. On November 12, in a legendary skirmish known as the Canoe Fight, Dale boarded a large Indian dugout and in hand-to-hand combat killed several Indians. Dale’s prowess gave people in the territory both a victory to celebrate and a hero to honor.134
Later that month, Brigadier General John Floyd targeted Autosee, a large Creek village in Georgia that was inhabited by around about 1,000 warriors. With 1,000 Georgia troops and 300–400 friendly Creeks led by William McIntosh, Floyd attacked Autosee on November 29. Using field artillery and a bayonet charge, Floyd’s men scattered the Indians and then burned Autosee and the neighboring village of Tallassee. The following month Brigadier General Ferdinand L. Claiborne targeted Econochaca, also known as the Holy Ground, located on the Alabama River in the Mississippi Territory. With a mixed force of 1,000 regulars, militia, volunteers, and friendly Indians, Claiborne on December 23 attacked. After some hard fighting, the Indians fled into the wilderness. William Weatherford was the last to leave, and he escaped only by riding his horse off a bluff into the river 20 feet below. In January 1814, Floyd again marched into Creek country, this time with 1,200 Georgia troops, some cavalry, and about 400 friendly Creeks. On January 27, this force was attacked at Calabee Creek. The fighting was fierce, but a combination of artillery and rifle fire followed by a bayonet charge drove the Indians off. In the Battle of Calabee Creek, Floyd’s men sustained around 170 casualties. The Red Sticks suffered 40 dead and an unknown number wounded.135
“Old Hickory” Takes Command
Although the operations launched from Georgia and the Mississippi Territory took a heavy toll on the Creeks, the results were inconclusive. The campaign from Tennessee, by contrast, was more sustained and thus more decisive. Although the heart of the Creek country was least accessible from this state, by the fall of 1813 some 2,500 militia and volunteers had assembled to undertake a punitive expedition. The troops included young Sam Houston and Davy Crockett, who reportedly kept “the camp alive with his quaint conceits and marvelous narratives.”136 Andrew Jackson, a major general in the Tennessee militia, assumed command of the troops even though he was still recovering from bullet wounds suffered in a brawl with the Benton brothers, Jesse and Thomas Hart. A tough Indian fighter who was already known as “Old Hickory,” Jackson planned to wipe out the Red Sticks and then seize Spanish Florida. “The blood of our women & children,” he told his troops, “shall not call for vengeance in vain.”137
Marching rapidly south, Jackson built Fort Strother on the Coosa River to serve as a forward base. On November 3, his most able lieutenant, Brigadier General John Coffee, led 900 Tennessee militia and volunteers and some Cherokees and friendly Creeks against the Red Stick village of Tallushatchee. Using tactics pioneered by Hannibal 2,000 years before, Coffee formed his men into a semicircle around the village, induced the Indians to attack, and then closed the loop. Coffee sustained fewer than 50 casualties in the Battle of Tallushatchee, while the Indians suffered at least 200 killed and 84 women and children captured.138 “The enemy fought with savage fury,” reported Coffee, “and met death with all its horrors, without shrinking or complaining: not one asked to be spared, but fought as long as they could stand or sit.”139
Several days later Jackson learned that 1,100 Red Sticks were besieging a town of friendly Creeks at Talladega. Jackson marched 2,000 men to the town and on November 9 used the same tactics as Coffee to envelop the Red Sticks. The Indians suffered huge casualties, leaving 300 dead on the field, before finding a weak spot in Jackson’s line and effecting their escape. Jackson’s own losses in the Battle of Talladega were about 100.140
Jackson’s Supply and Discipline Problems
At this point, Jackson had to suspend operations and return to Fort Strother because his provisions were low. Like so many field commanders in this war, Jackson had to contend with recurring supply problems. “The difficulties and delays of The Campaign,” he said, “are to be ascribed, primarily, to The negligence of The Contractors.”141 In addition, many of his troops, whose terms of service had expired, wanted to go home. On several occasions Jackson had to threaten volunteers with militia or militia with volunteers in order to keep his army intact. Twice he leveled his own gun against men threatening to leave. As if this were not enough, the governor of Tennessee was beginning to lose heart, and Jackson had to buttress his resolve. It was only by sheer force of will that Old Hickory kept his army together and the campaign alive.142
Ultimately, Jackson had to permit most of his troops to go home. But by early 1814 reinforcements had arrived, raising his strength to 1,000 men. Resuming the offensive, Jackson marched into the very heart of Creek country, where he fought two engagements: one at Emuckfau on January 22 and the other at Enotachopco Creek two days later. The fighting in both battles was intense, but each time the outcome was inconclusive. Jackson sustained about 100 casualties, while the Indians probably suffered twice this number. By now the Red Sticks, who had learned something of their foe, called Jackson “Sharp Knife” or “Pointed Arrow.”143
After returning again to Fort Strother, Jackson stockpiled supplies and waited for fresh troops. Tales of his campaign stimulated recruiting in Tennessee, and by February 1814 his army was 4,000 strong. Among the new arrivals were 600 regulars. Jackson hoped that these troops would give “Strength to my arm & quell mutiny,” but he continued to have trouble with the militia.144 When one young soldier, John Woods, refused to obey orders, Jackson ordered him court-martialed. The defendant was convicted and shot—the first execution of a citizen soldier since the Revolution. “An army cannot exist where order & Subordination are wholly disregarded,” Jackson said in defense of his actions.145 The sanguinary lesson was not lost on his men. According to Jackson’s aide, “a strict obedience afterwards characterized the army.”146 In this campaign, as in others, Jackson got the most out of his men because they feared him more than they feared the enemy.
The Battle of Horseshoe Bend
Jackson learned from friendly Indians that about 1,000 hostile Creeks had established themselves on a peninsula called Horseshoe Bend on the Tallapoosa River. The Indians had fortified the land approach and placed their canoes on the river in case they had to flee. Jackson marched to the scene with about 3,000 men (including a sizeable number of friendly Creeks and Cherokees) and laid plans for an attack. The battle began on March 27, 1814, when friendly Indians swam the river and made off with the Creek canoes. After fruitlessly pounding the enemy breastworks with his two small fieldpieces, Jackson launched a frontal assault. Among the first over the breastworks was Sam Houston, who was wounded in the leg. (“The Raven” was wounded twice more in the battle but survived to become the first president of the independent Republic of Texas.) As Jackson’s men were storming the Red Stick works from the front, his Indian allies used the Creek canoes to cross the river and mount an attack from the rear.
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